Final Battle, Before the War

Beyond the Sky Curtain, within the various Azure Heaven Ancient Realms.

In a shrine deep within the Chaos God Realm, sealed away for countless epochs, every lamp was blazing brightly.

The Creation Sequences left behind sat in a circle before a wall of steles carved with the names of ancestors throughout the ages.

Every name on that stele wall belonged to an ancestor who had once inscribed formation patterns in the Myriad Realms Ruins for the sake of their clan.

Everyone stared fixedly at the ruins of the Chaos Divine City being devoured within the light screen.

An ancient ancestor, who had been sealed for who knew how many epochs and had awakened less than half an incense stick ago, suddenly rose to his feet.

When he had been born, the Chaos Divine City had only just laid its foundations in the Myriad Realms Ruins. Together with his fathers' generation, he had carved the first divine pattern. Later, he had returned to the ancient realm to guard the shrine, and had not stepped outside for who knew how many epochs.

Now, with the hands that had once carved the first formation pattern of the divine city, he trembled as he pointed at the light screen.

His voice was shrill, like a blade tip scraping across glazed glass.

"Destroyed—everything's destroyed! How many epochs, how many people! Those formation patterns were carved with generation after generation of lives, from the foundations to the city walls, from the towers to the core formation eyes—every stroke upon them, the origin we offered to Lord Ancient Pagoda in exchange for his recognition, all swallowed in a single bite! Not even one intact fragment of city wall remains!"

A thread of golden blood spilled from the old man's lips, seeping down his gray-white beard.

Another equally